


I Always Trust The Brigadier

by Lionheart39



Series: She Knows Who Can Help! [2]
Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:20:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26663581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lionheart39/pseuds/Lionheart39
Summary: After losing Rose the Doctor needs his friends.
Relationships: Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart/Doris Lethbridge-Stewart, Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Series: She Knows Who Can Help! [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1940053
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	I Always Trust The Brigadier

UNIT HQ at 02.30 was like a ghost town the Brigadier thought as he walked wearily down the corridors towards the stairs that led up to his apartment! Especially these days, once upon a time he would have been able to stop in at the lab and share a cocoa or a glass of whisky with the Doctor. Or if Yates or Benton were the Night Duty Officer, a mug of tea in the main office. But now UNIT was full of bright keen young people and he was all that remained of the old guard. 

Benton had retired to sell second hand cars! The Brigadier smiled, Benton was too honest a chap to make a success of that. He'd be better off running a pub!

Yates had retired on ill health after that New Age thing, mind you he'd been helpful in that spider incident! He'd have to check up on Yates, he worried about the lad when he hadn't heard from him for a while!

Even Harry had left, he was now doing important things at Portan Down! The Doctor had always under estimated Harry.

He stopped outside the lab door, no use going in, the efficient young people who worked there now kept sensible hours. Besides they weren't his friends, they just saw him as the C.O. some old war horse who authorised request forms.

There was no Doctor, no Liz, no Jo, in there now.

“I'm getting too old for all this!” he muttered sadly as he once again contemplated the idea of retiring!

He had got just a hundred yards further down the corridor when he heard it, that familiar sound of Alien Mechanics ripping the air around it to pieces!

A young sentry came running from the security room!

“Stand Down, Corporal!” the Brigadier ordered. “It'll be for me!”

He walked into the lab, the edge of a smile on his face. It was there in the corner, a corner that he had ordered should always be left clear, much to the annoyance of Dr Lee who couldn't understand why. Yes, there it was a police box, a 1960’s police box!

He waited for the door to open and wondered which Doctor he would get this time, but nothing happened. He sat down and waited some more. Then after 5 minutes he walked up to the box. 

“Doctor!” he called.

Nothing, no sound, just.. nothing.

He placed the palm of his hand on the TARDIS, “Hello, old girl, good to see you! Is he inside?”

The door clicked open, and still no one exited. But the floor panels lit up so he followed the lights inside.

As he approached the console a screen lit up!

‘Welcome Brigadier! He needs you! We Need you!’

“OK, old friend, I'm here now, so show me where he is!”

The lights again lit up sections of the floor and Alistair followed them. 

This was a Doctor he hadn't seen before, a young man for once dressed smartly in a suit, pity the scruffy plimsolls spoiled a look that he could almost approve of, and the hair of course. Mind you the Doctor never seemed to be able to get himself a decent hair cut. Perhaps there were very few barbers out there in space!

He noted the empty spirit bottles littering the floor. They didn't really worry him, although he knew the Doctor could get tipsy, he also knew it was more to be sociable. His Time Lord metabolism processed alcohol at an enviable rate. What did make his eyebrows raise were the vast number of ginger beer bottles. Ginger beer and Time Lord metabolisms didn't mix, especially if alcohol was included. He bent down to check his friend out!

“Doctor? Doctor, can you hear me?”

No reaction, he shook the man, there was a grunt and the Doctor tried to roll away.

“Well at least you aren't dead!”

Alistair grabbed the Doctor under the arms.

“Gerrr offf!” came the mumble from the Doctor as he tried and failed to pull away from the Brigadier.

A couch materialised near them. 

“Thank you TARDIS, good idea, let's get him sat up and some strong, hot coffee into him!”

Before he'd even finished the sentence he could smell the coffee which appeared on a table at the other side of the couch.

“Oh, and we may need....”

A bucket also materialised. Alistair quirked a smile, “You read my mind!” he said amusement in his voice.

The Brigadier dragged the Doctor towards the couch. With an effort he pulled him up to his feet and manoeuvred him onto it.

Alistair let out a grunt with the effort, “Good job this you is on the skinny side!”

The Doctor slumped on to his side. Muttering something to himself that the Brigadier couldn't make out!

Alistair went over to the table and poured coffee into one of the mugs, it smelt terribly strong! He grinned at the slogan on the mug ‘Trust Me I'm The Doctor!’

He used his foot to slide the bucket nearer and set the mug on the small side table that appeared next to him. 

“Thanks old girl!” he said to the TARDIS, they really were working as a team on this.

Alistair sat down next to the Doctor and pulled his friend up into a sitting position, placing an arm around him to keep him there, the Doctors head rested on his shoulder! 

The Doctor muttered an objection, but not one that made any coherent sense!

The Brigadier wafted the coffee under the Doctor’s nose! 

He felt his friend react to the smell, his body twitched more upright and his eyes fluttered open. 

Suddenly and quite unexpectedly the Doctor grabbed the mug and downed the coffee in one desperate action!

Alistair grabbed the bucket and in the nick of time positioned it in front of the Doctor as he doubled over and threw up!

He kept a hand on his friend’s shoulder just in case he passed out. He looked around an a damp cloth and a glass of water appeared on the table next to him. As the Doctor stopped retching Alistair passed him the glass. The Doctor blinked and looked at the man in the uniform, he nodded, took a sip of water and rinsed his mouth out.

“Thanks Alistair!” he muttered. 

“Dulcus 5 Coffee!” he said sharply looking at the TARDIS roof. “That wasn't a nice trick to play on a man when he's down!”

Alistair knew the remark was aimed at the TARDIS, he could feel her, what was it, glee! 

The Brigadier passed him the damp cloth. He looked at the bucket between the Doctor’s feet, as he did so it disappeared. He could have done with a friend like the TARDIS in his youth! Alistair thought. With that thought there came a strange feeling of comradeship!

The Doctor glanced over at his friend, “You know she feels the same about you, I should be jealous because she’s my girl, but I trust you not to steal her away!”

The Brigadier smiled, “Not cricket to steal a friend’s Girl, Doctor, no matter how much you love her!” he was thinking of Doris Brydon, who had gone on to marry a friend and fellow officer after they had lost touch when he was posted.

“So how are you feeling?” he asked shaking off the thought of Doris.

“Hungry!”

Suddenly a Bacon sandwich appeared on the table near the Doctor, he picked it up and started into it like a starved man. 

The Brigadier envied his friend, it did smell good. Another bacon sandwich appeared on the table near him. Alistair lifted the bread and smiled!

“Hey, not fair,” the Doctor protested, “how come he gets HP sauce!”

Alistair just grinned and ate his sandwich and then took a drink of the thick brown tea that had appeared in a mug with the slogan “I Always Trust The Brigadier!”

Alistair grinned seeing the Doctor scowling as he read it.

“Well, what can I help you with Doctor?” he asked!

“What makes you think I need help?” the Doctor asked grumpily.

Alistair reached out a foot and nudged a ginger beer bottle. 

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck, then suddenly got up and started pacing back and forth, occasionally casting glances at his friend.

Alistair watched him as he paced back and forth! Suddenly the Doctor turned around and faced him!

“Alistair have you ever been in love?” the Doctor demanded.

Before the old soldier could answer the Doctor stopped him. “I mean really in Love, the kind that, well you know you’ll never find again!” 

Alistair looked at his friend, “Yes, Doctor. Yes, I have!”

The Doctor looked closely at his old friend and saw in his eyes the look he had seen in his own reflection since he had lost Rose.

The Doctor shuffled his feet. Then sat heavily next to his friend. “I'm over 900 years old, Alistair, I thought I knew everything, I thought I'd experienced everything but then.. then I met Rose, and.....”

Alistair nodded, “When you really fall in love it's like an illness isn't it Doctor, it takes over your whole world. Nothing else matters!” he said quietly.

The Doctor nodded looking down at his shoes.

“I would have given up everything to be with her, Alistair, if she had asked I would have never travelled to the stars again as long as she was alive!”

“She wasn't one of your people then?”

The Doctor shook his head. “No, Rose, was human!” He quirked a smile, “seems, I'm destined to have humans as the most important people in my lives!”

He placed a hand on his friends wrist and squeezed it, before standing up and pacing again!

“Real Love hurts Doctor, it hurts and leaves you feeling empty, especially when you lose it!”

“Tell me about Rose, is she...”

The Doctor shook his head! “No, but well ..” he stopped! “We can't be together and that feels, well feels worse because I know she loves me and we both feel like this!”

“Tell me, about it!” Alistair said hoping that talking about it would help the Doctor cope.

“Rose.. how do I describe Rose? Beautiful, fiery.. not afraid to put me in my place, she didn't take any bull! I could depend upon her, she was so brave and she trusted me!”

He spun around to look at his friend!

Alistair nodded sympathetically.

“Well, there was a battle between the Daleks and the Cybermen, they were using a RIP between parallel realities. I can't go into it, but it boiled down that to save Rose’s life she ended up in that other reality! And no before you ask I can't get her back. It took the whole power of a supernova just to be able to speak to her...”

The Doctor sunk down onto the seat next to his friend and hid his face in his hands.

Alistair said nothing but kept a hand on his shoulder!

After a couple of minutes he turned a tear stained face to his friend.

“Do you know what she told me, Alistair?”

He thought he did but still remained quiet “She told me she loved me, but the portal collapsed before I got to tell her how I felt!”

Both men sat in silence for a few minutes.

“So what do I do now?” the Doctor asked finally.  
Alistair thought, of the loss of Doris, of getting back from that posting to Korea and finding her married.

He hadn't told her about how much she meant to him, before he left, because he didn't want her hurt if he didn't return. 

He remembered a month later meeting her in Brighton when she had been on a girls night out while George was on manoeuvres. He had been slightly drunk and had told her how he felt. Then having her crying in his arms as she confessed her feelings for him. They had had a mad one night stand then both of them had agreed never to mention it again. She had George and both knew it wouldn't be fair to him, and Alistair had his career, if they took their relationship forward he would have to resign! So they had walked away from each other, agreeing never again to meet. 

Still he remembered how devastated he had been, and afterwards how reckless, not caring what happened to himself! A few weeks later winning his D.S.O. because he just didn't want to go on living, so had raced headlong into a hail of bullets to save his men! He had survived and been proclaimed a hero, much to his personal shame. In his opinion real hero's acted bravely wanting to live!

Minor loves had appeared in his life and even one he had mistaken for the real thing, Fiona his ex-wife! And then there had been his daughter Kate. Yes, love hurt but you survive it!

Alistair looked sadly at his friend , “I am sorry Doctor and I know this will sound trite and perhaps, it is, but it's better..”

“to have loved and lost!” the Doctor snapped out rounding on his friend until he saw the hurt in his friends face.

“I know, Doctor, it doesn't help. But nor does this, he said gesturing to the bottles. Nor does racing headlong into danger praying for a quick and noble death!”

The Doctor blinked looked at his old friend and placed a hand on his arm, realising that Alistair had been through the same feelings.

“It will get easier and you will find.. well love again. Maybe not such an intense love but..” the old soldier looked around the TARDIS and shrugged. “Time will help Doctor, as will talking to friends, and remember you have two friends right here who care about you!”

They sat quietly for a long time. 

The Doctor nodded and sat sipping his mug of tea thinking that the slogan on the Brigadier’s mug was very appropriate!

He still felt like there were masive holes in his hearts, but looking at Alistair and knowing what was to come for him he smiled. Maybe he should stop wallowing in self pity and get on there may yet be a way of finding Rose again!


End file.
